"Do you really have to leave Tokyo? Isn't there some way you can stay?" Honoka asked, leaning against the driver's side door of her haphazardly parked pickup and rubbing her gloved hands together to generate some minor amount of heat. The cold was bone-chilling despite the sun hanging bright in the sky, but that was a given for early January. There was a light bit of snow on the ground, but most of it was resting on top of the surrounding trees, or piled up on the sides of the dirt road. Umi sighed, trudging down the walkway after her to get what was probably the next to last stack of boxes. She slid a few boxes out of the flatbed, cradling them in one arm.

"Yes Honoka, I really have to leave. You're still asking me that when we're all the way out here?" Umi asked, gesturing around her with the arm that wasn't occupied with carrying boxes. It was grass and trees for as far as either of them could see, with barely any other houses in sight.

"Where even are we?" Honoka muttered, grabbing a particularly heavy box in her arms and walking alongside Umi up the walkway, kicking up gravel with each tired step. She shivered slightly against the cold air; Umi had warned her to bring a warmer jacket.

"Outside of Daigo. You drove us here?" Umi said, raising an eyebrow at her. The car ride up had taken a little over three hours, but probably would have been a whole lot shorter if Honoka hadn't gotten lost on the back roads of Ibaraki prefecture three separate times because she insisted it would be faster not to take the highway. Umi sighed and shook her head at the memory of the "adventure" (or so Honoka had insisted on calling it the entire time) as they approached the house. It was large and classically constructed. She had only been there once since her parents moved up early last year, but she assumed it had all the makings of a proper traditional Japanese home: a pond and a garden in the backyard, stepping stones, sliding doors. Carefully so as to avoid dropping them, she steadied the pile of boxes against her hip as she opened the door. Her smiling mother was waiting behind the door, ready to talk Honoka's ear off while she took the boxes into her waiting arms.

"Are you sure you don't want some tea? It's awfully cold out there," Umi's mother insisted, but Honoka shook her head quickly and immediately ran back down the path, retreating. Hands shoved in the pockets of her thick jacket for warmth, Umi followed after. Honoka leaned against the truck again, panting slightly.

"You're really sure you can't stay in Tokyo?" she asked again.

"Yes, I'm sure. You already asked me this at least twenty times on the way up here, Honoka. I don't want to leave either, but I couldn't afford Tokyo on a waitressing wage," Umi said, sighing yet again, her breath coming out as a cloud of steam against the cold Northern air. "You wouldn't understand since you work for your family."

"Why don't you just apply for not-waitressy jobs, then?"

"Trust me, Honoka, I've tried. You know I don't really have any outstanding skills, so I end up only getting hired by restaurants and cafes."

Honoka frowned, visibly unhappy with that answer, but silently helped carry the final pair of boxes up the walkway anyway. Old Miss Sonoda was in her face again instantly, offering her snacks and a warm blanket, but before she could even finish her sentence, Honoka sprinted away again, skidding on gravel and barrelling into the side of her truck with an "oof" that was loud enough to be heard from the doorway.

"Why is Honoka-chan being so... evasive? She usually accepts snacks right away," Umi's mother lamented.

"It's because she's upset. She's taking this the hardest out of any of us, but she doesn't want to deal with feeling sad. You know how she hates change," Umi said, her voice quiet as she handed off the boxes. "Like a little kid."

Umi's mother nodded in response, humming curiously. "You're all such good friends that it's almost like I ended up with three daughters instead of just one!" she said with a sweet smile. "Why didn't you bring Kotori-chan up as well?"

"She's up in Sapporo for work this week. She's really… doing a lot better than me in that respect," Umi said, earning a sympathetic pat on the shoulder from her mother. "I'd better go see Honoka off."

Clouds started to roll in overhead as Umi reached the end of the walkway. The ginger was locking up the hatch on the back of her truck. She gazed up at the house behind Umi as she approached. "It really is a nice house. Do you think your parents wouldn't pay for you to stay in Tokyo because they wanted you to help them fill up all the empty space?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Umi said, shaking her head and furrowing her eyebrows slightly as she reached into the passenger seat to grab the last item, a dark blue overnight bag. Honoka laughed a little in reply before they fell into a moment of sad, stagnant silence, both of them leaning up against the side of the truck and looking at the dirt road beneath their feet.

"Umi-chan," Honoka spoke up first, cracking the silence like thin ice, tears threatening to spill from unusually dull cobalt eyes. She scooped Umi up suddenly in a bear hug, shaking a little as she held back her tears, sniffling. "I'm gonna miss you, like really miss you a lot."

"It's not like I'm leaving the planet," Umi smiled sadly, returning the hug with her free arm. "I can always go back to Tokyo to visit, I'm only a train ride away."

Honoka broke off the hug suddenly, holding Umi by the shoulders, her face suddenly serious despite the tears in her eyes. "Umi-chan, you had better find yourself a girlfriend while you're out here. If you don't, I'll be way mad at you!"

Umi sputtered, blushing and flustered at her friend's words. She moved in for a karate chop to Honoka's head, the ginger dodging out of the way with a smile on her face. Shivering a little again, Honoka wiped the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her letterman jacket. Without either of them noticing, it had started to snow.

Umi never realized how warm it was in Tokyo until after she started living up North. Granted, she wasn't that far North, still technically in Kanto, but the winter so far was colder than any she had experienced in her five years in Tokyo. Even after a week of trying to get used to it, the cold still ate away at her. At least, she told herself it was the cold, but it was probably the loneliness.

She shivered underneath her thick blackberry-colored coat, hands pulling at the cuffs as she made the unpleasant walk through the parking lot. Checking her watch, she confirmed that she was indeed almost twenty minutes early for her first interview since moving up North; maybe that was a little too early, even? She appraised the building as she approached it. It was a tiny restaurant, an unassuming building in building in what was considered the downtown area of Daigo. (It was nothing compared to the wide, crowded streets and skyscrapers of Tokyo that she had fallen in love with, but it would have to do.)

"Their food is the best in the whole region!" her parents had insisted to her. They wouldn't stop talking about it until she finally caved in and applied at the place. "People come from all over Japan to eat there! It's always so busy, but definitely worth it. Umi, they'd be lucky to have you there!" they had said.

So, she had put in an application and waited for a call, and now, half a week later she was in her best shirt, trudging across the parking lot to her interview. She didn't expect much and when she walked into the restaurant her expectations were blown completely out of the water. The place was packed, customers dining on delicious-smelling food at every table and numerous waitresses zipping around between booths and behind the swinging doors to the kitchen. The atmosphere was warm and busy, a clear contrast to the empty, frozen streets outside. She approached the counter slowly, gazing out at the front of house floor, speechless.

"How can I help you?" asked the short-haired girl at the counter, a cute but professional smile on her face.

"I have an interview at 3," Umi stated simply, trying to get a glimpse through the door to the kitchen.

"You're pretty early. I'll go get the boss," the girl said quickly, zooming into the back. Moments later, the girl peeked out from the doorway, motioning Umi to follow her back. Umi nodded, carefully stepping around the front counter and past the door.

To her right when she walked in was a wall with a short, wide window into the kitchen, where cooks placed plates of freshly cooked food and the waitresses darted in and out of the swinging double doors to get them. The area was buzzing with noise, with voices and the sounds of sizzling and chopping. To the left was what she assumed to be the office, a room that was half made of tinted windows that looked out into the kitchen and into the dining area. It always felt surreal to enter the back of a restaurant for the first time, but it was a feeling Umi had gotten used to over years of doing the same job at different places. She was led into the office and the tiny girl that had escorted her in had disappeared without Umi even noticing.

"Hello," Umi said politely, hands clasped behind her back as she stood just inside the office door. The room wasn't messy exactly, but it looked a little disorganized. The woman at the desk spun around in her chair to face Umi, smiling at her. She had dark hair in a messy braid, bangs that framed her wide, dimpled face, and a kind-looking squint.

"Hey there, welcome. Have a seat," greeted the manager, motioning to an unfolded metal chair a few feet from her. Umi sat down, hands resting on her lap, as the woman continued. "I'm Nozomi Toujou, owner and manager."

"Umi Sonoda. It's a pleasure to meet you," Umi said simply, bowing.

"So your resumè said you've got about five years of customer service experience?"

"Yes, and all as a waitress. I suppose I'm a popular choice for that sort of position."

"I can see why," the woman grinned, her voice lilting with a thick accent that Umi couldn't place, but must have been from somewhere West of here, probably Osaka (Which made sense, upon further examination. Large and friendly, Miss Toujou was basically the poster child of Osakan sensibilities). "There's just something about you, I can see it. The customers would love you." She continued. Unsurprisingly, that's what Umi was told everywhere she went. She always had "something about her" that made her perfect for the job, but nobody could ever pinpoint it or tell her what it was. "So do you wanna fill out the new hire paperwork now, or later?"

Umi blinked a few times in silent confusion, processing what she had just been asked. Well, that was a quick turn around. "You're hiring me already?"

"Honey, you're the only person who applied."

It took a bit of adjusting, but Umi quickly fell in love with her new job. It paid better than any job she'd ever held while in Tokyo, and there was never a dull moment. She genuinely enjoyed it, which was never something she'd expect to feel about yet another waitressing position.

But despite all that, there was still something that didn't sit quite right with her, though she couldn't place it. Part of her uneasiness came from the constant rumors she heard about the head chef. After a month of working there, Umi had yet to even catch a glimpse of the woman in question, but she had heard a million different things about her. The other front of house staff were constantly abuzz with talk of the elusive Chef Nico; there were claims that she was some sort of culinary genius, that she earned her degree in less than two years, half the time it took most accomplished chefs, or that she received frequent calls from famous restaurants across the country looking to hire her, but she always declined. (There was one particularly nasty rumor about how she chased off a previous chef they had hired, intimidated them with her bad attitude and distrust of outsiders) Umi, skeptic that she was, wouldn't believe a word of it without proper proof.

"I heard she once cooked a meal for the Prime Minister and it was so good that he tried to give her the whole country in return," Rin, the short, energetic girl who worked at the front counter, whispered to Umi as she walked by, on her way back to the kitchen sink with a pile of dirty plates.

"Well, I haven't heard that one before," chuckled the manager, who neither Rin nor Umi had noticed was leaning just outside the double doors to the kitchen. "Definitely ain't true though, I can tell y'all that much."

The two waitresses looked at her in confusion, and the older woman let out another hearty chuckle.

"Wait, what do you mean, Nozomi-san?" Rin piped up, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. "You know the legendary secrets of Chef Nico?"

"They're hardly secrets. We opened this restaurant together, fresh outta college five years ago," Nozomi explained. Well, that certainly explained why she was so adamant on staying.

"Woah, you've known Chef Nico for that long?" the petite ginger girl said in awe.

"What's she like? How did you meet her?" Umi found herself wondering, unaware that she'd voiced the questions aloud until they were answered with another laugh from the manager, causing Umi to blush.

"Ah, that's a story for another day," she said, waving as she walked away from the curious pair of waitresses. "Rin-chan, hold down the fort while I take my lunch break."

"Sure thing, boss!"

Umi shuffled back into the kitchen, depositing the pile of plates at the sink, lost in thought. What did the chef look like, what was her personality? Everyone spoke so highly of Nico that Umi soon realized she couldn't stop wondering about her. It was at that point that, without realizing it, she had started to develop what must have been a slight crush on a coworker that she had never even seen the face of, superficial as it was.

It was a calm, relatively quiet night, a cloudy Saturday right at the beginning of March. The dinner rush was over at this point, and Umi was returning to the back of the house after clearing tables, a rag in one hand and a bucket of dirty silverware in the other.

"Umi-chan, c'mere for a second," Nozomi called from her office. The waitress quickly set aside the cleaning equipment she had been carrying, ducking her head into the office. The manager, she saw then, had just hung up her phone and was shrugging her coat on, rummaging around in some of the papers on her disorderly desk.

"Is something the matter?" Umi asked, dark eyebrows furrowed in concern.

"I hate to do this to y'all, but something just came up and I'm afraid I gotta leave a little early," she explained. It was still an hour and some change before closing, just before Umi was usually scheduled to clock out. "I'm gonna need you to stay a bit late to help close for me if it ain't too much trouble. You're the best front of the house girl we've got, so I feel safe leavin' it in your hands."

"I- are you sure? I've never closed before," Umi objected.

"Don't worry 'bout that, you've got Nicocchi here to help you," Nozomi said, reassuring her as she laid a few important-looking papers on the desk.

Nervousness suddenly washed over Umi, but the manager was out the door in the blink of an eye before Umi could utter any further objections.

The last hour of business was incredibly nerve-wracking for Umi, to say the least. She had never even so much as spoken to Chef Nico before, but she really wanted to, but at the same time, the thought of it terrified her. She was certain - entirely certain - that she would mess something up. The customers started to trickle out of the building, and then the other staff, headed out into the cold winter night and returning home, until it was just Nico, Umi, and the quiet hum of the kitchen equipment.

"Sonoda!" shouted a tiny voice from the back of the house as Umi finished wiping down the tables and quickly scurried back through the double doors. The light was on in the office, and the door swung open suddenly to reveal a tiny, ponytailed woman in a black chef uniform, complete with a matching hat. She was waving a paper in front of Umi's face, rattling off instructions at her, more so than to her.

Umi was dumbstruck, standing stiff and awkward before the office door. Nico looked… nothing like Umi had expected her to. In fact, she was so disarmingly small (and dare she say, cute) that it caught Umi entirely off guard, even as the chef was furrowing her eyebrows and asking Umi something. There was no way she was really as old as Nozomi claimed, right?

"Sonoda! Are you even listening?" Nico said, voice halfway between concerned and annoyed.

"Ah, s-sorry! I'm just… unused to being up this late?" Umi lied, gulping down her nervousness even though she knew it would come bubbling back up sooner rather than later. "I usually leave earlier so I'm just… a bit tired."

Nico chuckled, reaching up to pat her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, there's not a whole lot you have to do, so you can leave soon enough. Just get the stuff on this list done and you'll be in good shape. I'll be doing the books if you have any questions, alright?"

Umi nodded dumbly in response, taking the sheet of paper and quickly reading the list of instructions. She began to check the drawers and shelves, tidying up and making sure the equipment was all turned off and put away properly, taking inventory quietly. Her mind, however, wasn't quite so quiet, roaring at her that she made herself look like an idiot earlier. There was no doubt in her mind that Nico now thought she was either stupid or just plain rude.

But, what a surprise this had been! What business did Nico have being so cute? Of course, Umi had expected some sort of big, unfriendly lady, someone more stereotypical of a back of house worker. The chefs she had met in the past were almost always tough, loud types that cursed like sailors and were covered in tattoos. But here was Nico, tiny and thoughtful, seemingly far too charismatic for someone who supposedly couldn't stand most people.

Before she even realized that any time had passed, Umi found herself finished with all of the assignments on her checklist, rereading and neatly marking them off just to be sure. She headed for the office to hand in the paper to the chef and confirm that her work was indeed done, but stopped just short of three steps into the room.

Nico's jacket was thrown over the back of the spinny chair at the desk, her hair down from the ponytail it had been in, falling in messy locks across the back of her plain t-shirt. She was leant over slightly at the desk, squinting in confusion at what looked to be some very basic algebra.

"If you're trying to divide that by 3 it's 134," Umi said from over Nico's shoulder.

Nico jumped a little, startled, before registering that Umi had solved the math problem for her. "Ah, thanks. Numbers aren't exactly my strong suit."

"I apologize for not announcing that I was here," Umi blushed, shifting slightly in embarrassment. "I didn't want to disturb you since you looked very focused."

Nico laughed, and Umi could practically feel her heart leap in her chest at the sound.

"You done with the list already?" the smaller woman asked, spinning around idly in the chair. Umi nodded in confirmation, handing her the paper. "Alright, perfect. Good work. Go ahead and clock out, you should be able to since Nozomi changed your schedule in the system before she left. See ya tomorrow."

And so, Umi left, still not sure if today's events had actually occurred or if she was having some incredibly vivid fever dream. Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, she was happy about receiving praise from the chef, and excited at the prospect that she would see Nico again tomorrow.

When Umi got to work the next day, shivering from the walk across the cold parking lot between where she had parked her borrowed, beat-up old Toyota and the restaurant, she was greeted by a mischievous cat-face from her youngest coworker. As she approached, she raised a suspicious eyebrow at Rin, who was leaning happily on the front counter, with the kind of shit-eating grin on her face that indicated she knew something that Umi didn't. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"No reason," Rin answered, very obviously lying. Umi squinted at her as she walked past, through the double doors to the back of the house to hang up her coat in the break room and clock in.

"Umi-chan, you mind if I borrow you for a second?" Nozomi called from the open office door as she Umi passed it. The waitress quickly discarded her coat and grabbed her apron, tying her hair up as she exited the break room. On the short trip to the office she caught a brief glance of Nico, clad in her usual black chef jacket, entering the kitchen, probably having just been in the office.

Umi felt a sudden rush of fear and worry as she entered the manager's office, nervous sweat beading on her forehead. Was she in trouble for something? Did she not do a good enough job closing last night? This was exactly what she was afraid of when the situation came up in the first place.

"Don't worry, it's quite the opposite, actually," Nozomi said with a small, understanding smile. Realizing that she had accidentally said all of that out loud once again, Umi blushed, averting her embarrassed gaze to the tile floor. The manager laughed, leaning back in her spinny office chair as she continued. "Nicocchi actually came to me today to insist that you be promoted to her personal kitchen assistant immediately."

"I-I'm sorry, what?" Umi stuttered.

"I agree that it's a bit sudden, but lemme tell you, not once in the five years since we opened this restaurant has Nicocchi ever willingly got along with any of our employees, much less requested for one to be promoted," Nozomi explained. "It must be some kinda miracle that she's taken an interest in you, so the least I can do is honor her request."

Umi was speechless, unable to answer, but after a few moments of stunned silence, she gave a slow nod despite not completely comprehending the situation yet.

"Fantastic! Come see me before you leave tonight and I'll get you a couple'a kitchen uniforms. Your back of the house training will start tomorrow," the manager said excitedly.

Umi somehow managed to not faint from the shock.

In the two weeks that followed, Umi learned the ins and outs of basic kitchen knowledge. It was tough, and she was admittedly not very quick at cooking, or chopping, or peeling. She was, however, good at reaching up to get things off high shelves, which Nico seemed to simultaneously hate and appreciate. Though it was a relatively short amount of time, the more she watched Nico, the more she learned both from her and about her, the longer it started to feel like she had known her. The processes involved in making some of the best food in the country were still far less interesting than Umi found her as a person. They joked and talked and laughed (and Nico mad fun of her a lot, in that sarcastic asshole way of hers that was actually somewhat endearing) in what was probably the most effortlessly positive relationship Umi had ever experienced.

Often, Nico would ask her about her life, about her likes, and about her goals. Though Umi couldn't claim to have a terribly large amount of any of those things she still felt more comfortable and open talking about them than she could ever remember feeling with anybody else. Most of all, she couldn't stop thinking about it, a (probably) unrequited crush that she was taking far too seriously for her own liking but dammit, she was happy for once - really actually happy, and that was important to her above a lot of other things.

It occurred to her then, on a snowy Friday evening, that she'd really been here, making something of her life outside of Tokyo, for more than two months. And what's more, she had finally stopped missing it.

"Sonoda, get this door for me!" Nico yipped from across the kitchen, sounding very much like a bossy chihuahua, interrupting Umi's wandering thoughts. She rushed over to the walk-in cooler, where Nico was standing with a stack of food containers that was so high that she could hardly see over them, and pulled the heavy door open. Nico took a few steps forward and almost walked straight into the wall, the tower of clear plastic food storage bins in her arms swaying like one of those wacky waving arm flailing inflatable tube man things. Umi swooped in like a gay guardian angel, steadying them in her hands before taking more than half of them from the chef's tiny arms (as a safety precaution, and certainly not because she secretly wanted to show off a little). As Umi set down the containers on the shelves in the cooler, Nico thanked her with a knowing grin, causing Umi to blush and power-walk out of the small, cold room to hide behind the open door.

"Hey, don't lock me in here," the chef said with a laugh, waddling into the cooler with the remaining food.

After a few seconds of what sounded like the shuffling around of boxes from the other side of the door, Nico peeked up through the door window, presumably standing up on tiptoes to reach it, with a mildly entertained look on her face. "So, I saw that you requested tomorrow off."

Umi poked her head out from behind the door, eyes wide in surprise that Nico had noticed something like that (she had a feeling Nico rarely looked at anyone else's schedules besides her own). "I was, uh… it's... my birthday tomorrow, actually. So I'm visiting my friends back in Tokyo," she explained.

"What, you didn't wanna spend your birthday with me?" Nico pouted. "I'm hurt. Wounded, even."

Umi blushed yet again, clasping her hands behind her back and glancing elsewhere. When she thought about it, she wouldn't mind spending her birthday at work, considering that she got to work with Chef Nico.

"I'm kidding," Nico stuck her tongue out teasingly, closing the cooler door behind her as she left. "Do you miss it?"

"What?"

"Do you miss Tokyo?" she repeated, glancing up at Umi expectantly.

Umi was quiet for a moment, brow furrowed as she stared down at her work boots and the kitchen floor beneath them. Bringing her gaze back up, her face a subtle mix of a lot of different emotions that she didn't have the words to describe, she began, "I… I do miss my friends, but I don't think I miss the city anymore. I-" she paused, looking away again. "I like it here."

"I'm glad. Ya know, we're happy to have you here, kid. You do good work," Nico chuckled, giving her assistant a firm pat on the back. "Anyway, happy early birthday, Sonoda."

"I can hear y'all flirtin' from all the way over here! Get back to work," Nozomi yelled from her office. Umi blushed once more, and if she wasn't mistaken, Nico did too.

Sitting across the table from Honoka the next afternoon at a Tokyo cafe where she used to work, the nostalgic smell of coffee grounds washed over Umi. The atmosphere was warm, a clear contrast to the chilly mid-March air outside the building.

"Ugghh, when is Kotori getting here? She's already like ten minutes late," Honoka groaned, laying her head on the table. "I just wanna go shopping already."

"She just texted me that she's on her way," Umi replied, taking a sip of her coffee from the paper cup in her hands.

"Well she better get here soon, I wanna leeeaaave," The impatient ginger grumbled again, pouting and propping her head up on her hands, elbows resting on the table. After a few seconds of calm (boring) silence, with only the dull chatter of the cafe's other patrons in the background, she spoke up again, "Hey, tell me more stuff about your new job, Umi-chan."

"I've already told you pretty much everything," she shrugged. "There's not much else to say other than that I really… honestly, for the first time in a long time, like my job and enjoy what I do."

"I can tell, you sound so happy now," Honoka laughed, grinning at her from across the table. "If I didn't know any better I'd think you finally got a girlfriend, too."

Umi blushed and sputtered, nearly spitting out her drink. "Honoka!"

"Wait, did you? You did?" Honoka asked with wide eyes, scrambling to lean forward towards Umi, hands on the table. "Did you really?"

"No! It's nothing like that!" she said defensively, trying to hide her blushing cheeks behind clammy hands. "I just… have somebody that I like... but it's not that serious!"

"Who? C'mon Umi-chan, spill the beans!"

Umi leaned back in her chair, trying not to crack under Honoka's suffocating stare. Eventually, she sighed in defeat. "Okay, okay, it's…," she paused, gulping down the nervousness. "The head chef at my new job. When I first got there, I thought she would be scary but she's… cute. Incredibly cute, if a little rude, but actually really nice under all the rudeness."

Honoka gasped, placing a hand over her mouth in mock surprise. "Umi-chan, a workplace romance? How scandalous!"

"I told you, it's not a romance!" Umi blushed again.

"You sure you're not dating her? 'Cause you sound super in love and it's kinda gross," she chuckled, leaning her arms on the table again.

Umi glanced away, her shoulders slumping slightly. "No, I'm… not even sure if she likes me in the same way."

"I don't know, you can be pretty dense when it comes to that sort of stuff, so you're probably just not seeing it. I bet you two are super embarrassing to watch from everyone else's perspective."

Just as Umi was about to bite back and call Honoka a "tactless little monkey", the door chimed, signaling that someone new had just entered the cafe, and the chubby ginger sprang from her seat, rushing to them. Umi's eyes followed her to where she scooped up the new patron into a crushing bear hug.

"Sorry I'm late," chirped a familiar voice as Umi left her seat and approached the pair. Soft eyes and a warm smile pulled Umi into a hug, hands still cold from being outside. "Happy birthday, Umi-chan. I missed you."

"I missed you too," Umi said, smiling gently as Kotori finally released her from the hug. "I missed the both of you, more than anything."

Honoka was already halfway through the door, bouncing and gesturing for them to follow. The three of them left the cafe, paper cups of lukewarm coffee still sitting on the otherwise empty table. There was still snow on the ground, even in downtown Tokyo, but it was starting to melt.

"So, how was your birthday?" Chef Nico asked her the next evening as they were cleaning the kitchen. She had asked Umi to stay a bit later to help her close (they get done faster that way). Umi stopped in the middle of wiping down a countertop, turning over all of yesterday's events in her mind.

"I had a lot of fun," she said. "I missed my friends in Tokyo a lot. These past few months were the first time I'd been away from them for that long in years."

The chef didn't reply, simply nodded as she looked over the cleaning list one final time. Umi couldn't quite determine the expression on Nico's face, but it was an odd one, one she hadn't seen before. She failed to realize that she had been staring until Nico's eyes met hers suddenly, a satisfied smile quickly replacing the other mysterious look. "Looks like we're all done back here. I'll let Nozomi know so we can go clock out."

She shuffled off to the office and Umi, after a moment of hesitation, followed after. Much to her own embarrassment, the words Honoka had said to her yesterday echoed in her head again, now of all times. "You sound super in love."

As they punch their employee numbers into the timeclock, the manager peaks her head out of the office door, shooting Nico a sly smirk. "Don't have too much fun tonight, ya hear?"

Nico visibly tensed up while Umi blinked in confusion. "Hey, how about shut up?" Nico barked at her, once again looking very much like an angered chihuahua. Nozomi ducked back into the office just as Nico threw her balled-up chef's hat in her direction, and then chased after it as it rolled down the hallway.

Umi quietly shrugged her jacket on as a somewhat flustered Nico turned back to her, having retrieved her runaway hat, and grabbed her own jacket from the coat rack. "Hey, uh," the shorter woman began, scratching the back of her head in an unusually sheepish fashion. "I know it's kinda late, but do you wanna come back to my place and watch a movie with me? To celebrate your birthday, I mean."

Umi stared at her, face heating up as she processed the words she just heard. (Knowing Nico, she didn't imply anything less than decent by it, right? Definitely not a "Netflix and chill" sort of arrangement, right?) Averting her eyes again, Umi nodded, letting it sink in that maybe her friends were right; that she just couldn't see it before.

When they arrive at Nico's apartment later, Umi is notably… surprised. At how minimalist it is. It was a tiny place on the third floor of an equally tiny apartment building, with a small rooms and very little in the way of furniture. She had, quite frankly, expected there to be more money put into it, considering that Nico was one of those more well-known chefs in this part of the country.

"Oh please, you flatter me too much," Nico said with a chuckle, kicking off her work shoes and hanging up her coat, at which point Umi realized that she had, once again, accidentally spoken her thoughts aloud. She shrank up in embarrassment, removing her own shoes and jacket at the door. When she looked back up, Nico had vacated the room. Umi looked around in confusion for a few seconds before she saw Nico return from one of the few other rooms, shrugging on an Osaka University of Economics hoodie that was clearly and obviously too big for her. "And anyway, I like to live below my means. Keeps a girl humble."

"I was also under the impression that you and Nozomi-san lived together?" Umi commented, following Nico over to the couch and sitting down awkwardly, hands placed politely in her lap.

"We used to, back when we first opened the restaurant," Nico explained, standing at the TV stand and looking through a stack of DVD cases, which all appeared to be anime movies, curiously enough. She finally decided on one of them, placing it in the DVD player and plopping down on the couch next to Umi. "Now she lives out East by the coast with her wife, but I decided to stay out here." Nozomi-san has a wife? The more Umi learned, the less she felt like she knew.

Umi quickly found that she was having trouble paying attention to the plot of the movie with Nico cuddled up so close beside her. (She thinks it's about a bunch of tanuki? She's not sure.) She kept stealing glances at Nico throughout the night, carefully watching the way the light from the TV twinkled in her eyes.

"Enjoying the view?" Nico asked with a smug look on her face, startling Umi, who hadn't even realized that she'd been staring. She turned her face in the opposite direction to hide her embarrassment, earning a laugh from the older woman. "Well, now you're definitely not paying attention to the movie. Like, even more than before. If you're not gonna look at the TV, at least go back to looking at me instead?"

Umi refused to budge, even as Nico poked at her arm and repeated her name. The chef cleared her throat, conjuring up her kitchen voice. "Sonoda!"

"Yes, Chef!" Umi squeaked out, whipping back around to face her. She blushed immediately, Nico laughing again at that hilarious reaction. Before Umi could speak up in protest of all of this obvious bullying, she felt the other woman's hand on her cheek, interrupting any thoughts or actions that she might have made.

"Can I kiss you?" Nico asked, her voice gentle but firm. Umi nodded, eyes fluttering shut. Umi had kissed a few girls before that point, obviously, but none of those times even came close to this one. Nico wasn't forceful exactly, but she was unmistakably confident, a contrast to Umi's nervousness, cautiousness. She found herself, despite her initial hesitations, leaning into it just a little, letting out a satisfied sigh that bordered on being a moan. Upon realizing that she had just uttered such an indecent noise, she pulled away, hiding her heavily blushing face behind her hands.

Nico giggled (a fantastic sound, it really was). "You really are way too cute," she grinned, pulling at Umi's hands, bringing them away from her face, and kissing her again. That time, Umi didn't hide. She was flustered and her nervous heart felt like it was melting,but she was happy beyond belief.

The credits of the movie have been rolling for three minutes. Outside the tiny apartment, the last of the snow on the ground had finally melted.

Omake:

"Jeez, Nicocchi still isn't answering my texts," Nozomi grumbled, sitting in bed early the next morning and staring at her phone. Just then, her beautiful lovely wife Eli (so lovely. Really just the loveliest) walked in with a mug of coffee in each hand. Seeing the concern on Nozomi's face, she cocked her head a little, curious.

"What's up?" she asked, sitting beside her on the bed.

"Nicocchi had better not be late for work today," she pouted.

"Why would she be? Something happen?"

"Yeah, she finally brought Umi home," Nozomi declared proudly.

"Really?" Eli was surprised. "I didn't think she'd actually be able to do it."

"Those two are so disgustingly in love but refused to acknowledge it. It hurt to watch," Nozomi laid back on the covers, her arms crossed over her (sizable) chest. She raised her voice, loudly announcing, "If my best cook and my best waitress are both late today I'm quitting the restaurant business."

"You wouldn't do that, you love it too much," Eli laughed, and Nozomi smiled up at her. After a few seconds of just looking at each other, Eli glanced away. "I kinda wish you'd stop wearing that hoodie though…"

"What?" Nozomi sits up, an offended look on her face. The Tsuji School Of Culinary Arts sweatshirt she had on was so small on her that it was practically a crop top. "I traded my own college hoodie to Nico for this!"

"I know, but-"

"What, you don't think it's sexy?" Nozomi asked, striking a pose while winking and making a kissy face.

Eli threatened to pour Nozomi's coffee all over the bedroom carpet in protest.

Ckik here. This fic was supposed to be done in October? And then it was supposed to be done in February. And then last week. It wasn't done any of those times, but it's done now.

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